


Cruel Mouth

by Decepticonsensual



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:08:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23739625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Decepticonsensual/pseuds/Decepticonsensual
Summary: "Prowl with the head spikes and the cruel mouth and the - cross all the time!  Epically, pre-emptively, existentially cross.  And cold!  Supercilious and cold!  Imagine Ultra Magnus without the warmth and people skills.  How can you NOT know who Prowl is?"A series of ficlets for Prowl Week 2020!  Each day is based on a different prompt.Day 1 - "Crash":  A story about the little lies that don't matter (unless they do).
Relationships: Background Prowl/Chromedome
Comments: 38
Kudos: 99
Collections: Prowl Week





	1. Crash

**Author's Note:**

> These fics are likely to focus mostly on IDW Prowl. No particular warnings for Chapter 1, but please do heed the warnings on individual chapters as we go.
> 
> Summary quote is, of course, from More Than Meets The Eye (said by Swerve) - specifically, from Shadowplay Part 1.

It’s not entirely a lie.

He does have the ticket bought, even pulled up on his data pad for inspection before he boards. He’s down at the spaceport. His few belongings (never very many, and depleted, now, from several moves in rapid succession – in with Tumbler, out of the flat he shared with Tumbler, into official Senatorial Security quarters and out again) are slung into a pack or tucked into subspace, ready to make the journey to _anywhere but here._

Ahead of him is the transport he’s booked passage on, with harried-looking bots already cramming aboard. The transport that, a few hours from now, will be plummeting out of orbit thanks to a Decepticon missile.

That much is not a lie.

So if Prowl later elides events a little – if he tells the story of being onboard when the transport crashed, and talks about _that_ as the defining moment when he realised the war is never going to let him go, and the only thing left to do is fight it as best he can – does it matter? Amid so many cover stories and politic lies over four million years, does this one even count?

The truth is, he never sets foot on the transport. A few yards away, he turns, and ducks around a corner, leaning against the wall once he’s out of sight. His processor churns. His vents are ragged, as if he’s been driving full speed, and his engine feels hot. All the logic of self-preservation dictates that he get on that transport.

He doesn’t.

Tumbler is still on Cybertron, and it feels so wrong, strut-deep wrong, to be making his long-planned journey without him – but that isn’t what keeps Prowl here. Tumbler doesn’t want him anymore. All the planning in the world will not change that Tumbler doesn’t want him.

Duty is not what keeps Prowl here. Sentinel Prime is dead, and Zeta Prime wouldn’t touch Prowl for a stack of shanix. Prowl is tainted, by association and by his own failure. He’ll be lucky if he gets to spend the next few million years toiling in the records room of the most boring precinct in Iacon while the war rages around him. That’s hardly worth his life. There’s nothing left for him here; the Decepticons have seen to that, outmanouevering Prowl and his forces at every turn.

And _that’s_ it.

The Decepticons have a strategy that’s bigger than this, bigger than Sentinel, bigger than the damage they’ve done so far. Prowl can see the edges of it. He could make out its shape emerging between the lines of the official reports, before he lost access – but there are ways into Senate servers, and, more important, avenues for gathering intelligence beyond what comes in officially. The puzzle box that is Megatron’s strategy is starting to unlock in Prowl’s shaking hands, the symbols aligning; another twist and it will spring open. He can’t walk away.

When the news comes through of the transport’s destruction, Prowl (the good Primalist boy with the strict upbringing who still says his prayers) takes it as a sign he was destined to stay. Prowl the pragmatist, many years later, Prowl who accepts that there is no cosmic order – this Prowl knows that we all choose our path, and live with it. But it’s too late now, because that moment has already become part of the Legend of Prowl. Prowl, the avatar of war, whom the war would not let go.

No one needs to know it’s Prowl who couldn’t let go.


	2. High

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On an alien world, a poisoned dart drops Prowl - and lowers his inhibitions. For the prompt "High".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: (accidental) drug use

It’s not that the natives of this world are still in hot pursuit that bothers Prowl, or that they’ve made up for their inferior speeds by producing a range of projectile weapons and letting loose on Prowl and his little band of operatives as they go drifting across the purple sands. It’s not even the fact that he gets hit, one of the darts sinking into his tire just before he and the others manage to outstrip their pursuers. It’s the warm, muddy sluggishness he can feel spread through his fuel lines. It couldn’t be a straight-up injury, oh, no – that would be too _simple_ for a mission where absolutely everything else has already gone to scrap. No, it has to be this… this… compound, whatever it… His internal diagnostics are no use, numbers and glyphs blurring drunkenly in front of him. The text is bleeding apart into its component colours, cyan and magenta and yellow all swirling – sparkling – a field of stars, so beautiful, why are the stars inside him instead of outside, that doesn’t seem –

He skids out and tumbles wheels over roof, transforming mid-fall on instinct, and lies sprawled on the sand.

***

The static in front of his optics clears gradually, leaving a pretty, soothing stretch of magenta and white as far as he can see.

“Not much further. Transport’s just over that ridge.”  
  


The noises wash over him without his particularly regarding them. He’s more interested in the fact that the magenta and white field is – humming. He tries to raise a hand to touch it, but his limbs seem to have floated away. He wonders idly if he should mention that to someone.

“Thank frag.” These noises are much closer. “Boss, not for nothing, but all those new weapons mods aren’t light.”

_Boss._ That syllable stirs something in the humid torpor of his brain. He thinks maybe _Boss_ is his name?

Ah, his arms are back. They’re twice their normal size and inordinately heavy, but he manages to drag one up to touch the spread of magenta. It’s closer than he imagined. It’s warm.

“Hey.” The noises turn softer, and threads of them are starting to snag on his thoughts, like they should _mean_ something to him. “You awake, then?”

Boss drags his fingertips up the warm magenta surface, inch by inch.

***

“You awake, then?”  
  


Getaway isn’t really prepared for Prowl to respond to that by… stroking his chestplate. The strange intimacy is only worsened by the fact that it’s clearly not _supposed_ to be flirty. Prowl’s expression shows the single-minded intensity of a protoform discovering their own hands for the first time.

“Frag me, he’s far gone. You don’t – you don’t think it’s permanent, do you?”

Skids pauses and turns back towards him. “Wouldn’t think so. The natives on this world use mostly plant-based compounds in their weapons, and there’s nothing in this planet’s flora that should be strong enough to have a lasting effect. Probably dumb luck that it had any impact on a Cybertronian at all.”

“Guess you’re right.” Getaway looks down at Prowl slumped in his arms. “Still –”

“Please, a backwater world like this couldn’t cook up something that would permanently hurt a Cybertronian if they had a year’s runup and a recipe book,” drawls Mirage. He pushes past Getaway, and Getaway feels an unexpected hand squeeze his shoulder – only for an instant, before Mirage says, “I’ll make sure the way’s clear to the ship,” and vanishes.

Skids is smiling. “See? Feel better?”

“Honestly, I’m more worried about the fact that _Mirage_ is being nice to me.” Getaway shifts Prowl’s weight in his arms. “But yeah. A little.”

Prowl gazes up at Getaway, and them solemnly boops his nose. “Bomp.”

Getaway stares at him with an expression of such _abject horror_ that Skids bursts out laughing. “You see?” he crows. “You see how _annoying_ that actually is?”

“Hey, no, it’s charming when _I_ do it! From the Boss, though, that’s just... fragging unsettling.”

***

Prowl ( _Prowl,_ his name is _Prowl_ ) is vaguely aware of being lowered into a seat, softer but colder than the arms that have been carrying him. He blinks up through the slowly clearing haze. Magenta. White. A flash of blue at the throat, and above that, two blue optics set in gold. Familiar as the now-restored weight of his limbs. Getaway.

“You’re my favourite one,” he murmurs, and immediately forgets he’s said it, turning over and curling up to nap.

***

Getaway stands there for a long time, gaping at his sleeping boss. It’s ridiculous. It’s _ridiculous._ Prowl is higher than a Seeker squadron right now; who knows who he thinks is in the room with him? He can’t _mean_ that.

He can’t mean it for Getaway.

After a moment that feels as stretched-out and unreal as if Getaway were the one drugged, he starts at the sound of the shuttle door closing, and, with a whispered, “Sweet dreams, Boss,” heads to the cockpit.


	3. Law/Crime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For a one-time by-the-book cop, Prowl has a long, checkered history with the law. Usually, it's for a good cause. (Usually, that line ends up a little blurred.)
> 
> Occasionally, though, Prowl's crimes have a different motivation.
> 
> A 5+1 fic: five times Prowl committed crimes For The Greater Good, and one time he did it for himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My very delayed next contribution to Prowl Week, for Day 3 - Law/Crime!
> 
> I'm a little behind, partly beause life and partly because I did not intend for this to end up as more than 3,000 words of war and philosophy.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: Canon-typical violence (not very graphic), some references to canonical character death and war crimes, brief reference to harvested organs.

1.

“ _You,”_ Tumbler said, drawing out the words with an almost trembling relish, “broke a _rule._ ”

Prowl gave him a withering look. “So you mentioned. Four times, now.”

“I can’t get over it! _Officer Prowl_ broke the law! It’s like – up is down, black is white… You do remember that you threatened to write me up last week for filing my datapads wrong, yeah?”

“ _They weren’t chronological –_ look, will you just help me carry this inside?”

Still grinning under his mask, Tumbler shrugged and hefted one end of the box. For a modestly sized parcel, it was surprisingly heavy, and their progress at getting it inside the flat wasn’t helped by the fact that Prowl insisted on stopping at every corridor intersection and scanning for anyone walking past, in case they were spotted with their contraband. Prowl’s optics were constantly darting from side to side, and his engine had developed a worrying nervous ticking sound by the time he and Tumbler were able to shut the flat door behind them.

“So, what was worth contravening Subsection C.X.-973 of the Imports Regulation Act, anyway?”

“You… you actually memorised the subsection. Of the law that I...”

“– broke –”

“… _circumvented._ ”

“Memorised it? Prowl, I’m having that subsection tattooed on my plating. I don’t think you understand just how much I am _never going to let go_ of the fact that you… broke a...”

Tumbler trailed off as Prowl flipped the latches and lifted the lid off the box. In fact, for a moment after that, he found he couldn’t speak.

He finally managed to croak out, “That’s a mnemosurgery training pack. That’s what they give first-year academy students. How in the _frag_ did you...”

“I’d rather not say.” One side of Prowl’s mouth curved up slightly. “On the grounds that it may incriminate me.”  
  


“You – you really got this for me?”

“Of course.”

Tumbler grabbed Prowl’s hand and held tight. “Thank you. So much. This can’t have been easy.”

“I have my ways.” Prowl’s hand turned so that his fingers could interlace with Tumbler’s. “And after all, it taught me a valuable lesson about knowing which laws to follow, and which ones need to be set aside.”

“Really?”

“No. I hated every moment and I will never violate a single law again.”

Tumbler laughed, and playfully pinned Prowl against the table. Several moments went by where both of them were too busy to say anything, and then Tumbler lifted his mouth from the joint of Prowl’s door (Prowl let out a helpless little moan as he did) and asked, “Why are these illegal, anyway?”  
  


“Oh.” Prowl’s free hand – the one that wasn’t gripping Tumbler’s hip for dear life – reached over and lifted an object out of the box. “Probably because of this.”

“Is. Is that.”

“It’s a real brain in a jar, yes. For practice.”

“That is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen, I love you so damn much.”

II.

Orion Pax blinked in surprise when Prowl – after frowning thoughtfully at the lockscreen flashing red after his third failed attempt to intuit the passcode – lifted his rifle, and brought the butt of it down on the entire locking mechanism. The glass rained down amid the rest of the debris cluttering the dockside alley, and the screen fizzled for a second, then went dark.

“They’re already aware we’re here,” Prowl said matter-of-factly, catching Orion’s look.

“I didn’t say anything.”

Prowl simply raised a browridge at that. Then he hooked one fingertip inside the broken mechanism and snagged a particular wire. One tug, and the door creaked open.

“You must teach me that,” Orion murmured, as a truce offering. The two raised their guns and stepped into the dimly lit warehouse.

“You’d never use it,” Prowl whispered back. “You’re too – _behind you!_ ”

Orion dove out of the way, and Prowl pivoted to fire straight through the spot where Orion had been standing a nanosecond ago. There was a howl of pain, and a shadow that Orion now realised was darker than the surrounding shadows staggered, dropping heavily behind a stack of crates.

Prowl stalked over. The mech was alive, but the smoking hole in his shoulder would need medical attention sooner rather than later. Wary optics tracked Prowl’s approach. The fingers of the mech’s other hand twitched, but before they could move towards the gun he’d dropped, Prowl planted the barrel of his own rifle under the mech’s chin, nudging it up. “Don’t even think about it.”

“Frag you, _cop._ ”

Prowl simply tilted his head to the side, a faint smile on his lips. “Orion. Go check that hidden door to the secret room we found when we scoped this place out; I’ll bet you that’s where this one’s friends are hiding.”

Orion was about to protest that they’d never been inside the warehouse before, much less cased it for tonight’s operation, and certainly never found any kind of hidden door – but then Prowl motioned for him to cover the prisoner and strode across the warehouse himself, approaching a particularly tall tower of crates…

… and pulled on one of the slats, causing a section that had looked like part of the stack to swing outwards.

It would be hard to say who was more startled, Orion or the three Decepticons inside.

Orion was the first to recover, however, and after a brief tussle they had all four ’Cons restrained. Orion joined Prowl in the secret room as he was prying open the box that the Decepticons had been examining.

“Well done, Prowl.” Orion clapped him warmly on the shoulder. “Though I’ll confess, I have no idea how you pulled it off.”

Prowl grunted, the lid peeling back another few inches. “Figured they wouldn’t leave only one mech to guard the place. So I suggested a hidden room, and watched which direction his optics flicked. Then it was simple to – unnnh! – simple to find the opening mechanism for the door by looking at where the dust wasn’t.”

The lid came off the box with a crash. Inside were a dozen sleek, all-business rifles, noticeably better quality than what the enforcers had access to.

Prowl whistled. He hefted one. “Some especially nasty mods on these. Look at the acid nozzle here.”

Orion did, and shuddered. “Catalogue them all and pack them up to take to HQ for decommissioning.”

“Decommissioning? Sir, if all these boxes contain similar weapons, that’s enough to equip a significant chunk of the security forces. This could level the playing field for us considerably.”

“I will not sanction the use of those weapons in law enforcement. Is that clear?”

Prowl’s face went a very particular kind of blank. “Crystal, sir.”

Orion wasn’t entirely naive (regardless of how Ratchet mocked him for it). He quickly became aware, over the weeks that followed, that the modified weapons had found their way into the hands of his fellow officers. The evidence was thin on the ground – usually just a flash too bright or a scream too loud and pained in the middle of a firefight, occasionally a gun tucked out of sight not quite quickly enough in the armoury – and none of that evidence linked the guns conclusively to Prowl. Mostly, the way Orion knew about the guns was that the enforcers were starting to win more fights than they lost, even as the Decepticons’ armaments were improving, too.

He almost dragged Prowl in front of Zeta Prime for it, evidence or no. But… well, they _were_ winning.

Many months later, when Orion put Prowl in charge of dismantling the Senate weapon that had nearly wiped out an entire city, and Prowl’s face took on that same blankness, Orion didn’t say a word.

III.

As the bombs rained down on Carpessa, Prowl told himself that the new Autobot recruits this “Decepticon” war crime would inevitably inspire would take him that much closer to finishing the war, and making everything worth it.

He forced himself to watch, nevertheless.

IV.

“So this is how it is, huh?” Against the bright, sterilising lights of the detention centre, Impactor’s grin was filthy. “Every crime you ever ordered me to commit, and now you’re going to stand back and watch them put me away because _just once,_ I did what had to be done and you didn’t tell me to.”

There were guards at either end of the corridor, not so far away, but Prowl didn’t bother telling Impactor to lower his voice. Impactor had never been in the good books of the standard Autobot forces, even before he was an accused war criminal, whereas Prowl was still Autobot second-in-command. Rank had its privileges. Even if he doubted they liked him any better than Impactor.

“If you recall, I specifically ordered you _not_ to.”

“So why am I really in here?” Impactor swung his harpoon arm lazily through the bars. “For what I did to Squadron X, or for having the gall to tug at my leash?”

“You’re here because of your own actions, not mine. You didn’t just kill prisoners; you scrapped a vital treaty and dealt us a bigger tactical blow than Squadron X ever could. I can’t play favourites, Impactor.”

“Bullshit. I’ve seen how fond you are of your little Spec Ops pets. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that for all the slag _they_ do, none of them ended up at Aequitas’s tender mercy. If Skids or Getaway or Mirage or Dominus-fraggin’-Ambus were in here, you’d find a way to get them out.”

Prowl leaned up against the bars, close enough that he could murmur in Impactor’s audial. “If any of them put me in a position where I had to choose between them and the good of the faction, I would burn them without a second thought.”

“And we all know how Prowl lies.” Impactor turned his head so that his lips were all but brushing Prowl’s cheek. “I could confess, you know.”

“I’d advise you do. We have a witness.” A rather ironic witness, at that; Impactor had been the one who’d insisted on sparing the kid to begin with, and now the kid was going to damn him.

“No, I mean I could confess to _everything._ Every mess you’ve ever had me clean up. This court, that’s so Primus-damned _concerned_ with how we treat the ’Cons all of a sudden – how do you think they’d feel about Autobot war crimes against Autobots? Think they’d be interested in what happened to Mesothulas?”

“Mesothulas was a dedicated scientist, and his disappearance was tragic,” Prowl said coolly, “but hardly unexpected for someone working with such dangerous experimental technologies.”

Impactor chuckled. “Look at the brass bearings on you.”

“You stand accused of a single crime, one for which the court might even show leniency if you demonstrate remorse. You’re really proposing to get up on the stand and reel off a string of other things you did throughout the course of the war, none of which you’ll be able to link concretely to me?” Prowl had made sure of that.

“Maybe I can, and maybe I can’t. But I reckon I can start people asking questions.”

“You won’t, though.”

“Why? Because you’d send one of your pets to shut me up?”

Prowl pulled back and studied him, cold blue gaze like a physical thing, sliding into the joints of his armour and slicing.

Then he said, “No. Because, after all this, you’re still an Autobot.”

V.

Stardrive squawked when Prowl pulled out the gun and motioned for the alien proprietor to open the safe, and the look he gave her over his shoulder was almost fond.

“We need the money for supplies and weaponry. We’re in the process of saving the entire galaxy; we don’t exactly have time for niceties.”

“‘Niceties’ like not committing _theft_?” she hissed, then turned to the alien. “I’m so, so sorry. We’ll pay you back when this is all over.”

They turned an even more turquoise shade of aquamarine, and made a burbling noise.

“Whoops. I believe they took that as a threat.”

“You don’t have to sound so amused about it,” Stardrive fumed at him.

The alien finished shovelling the safe’s contents into a sack, and tossed it to Prowl, who snapped it neatly out of the air and cocked his head at Stardrive. “Go, start the engines.” She scrambled out the back door – still shooting the proprietor apologetic glances at every step – and Prowl followed, easing backwards out of the room while he kept his gun trained on the alien.

Stardrive was quiet as they lifted off from the space station. It wasn’t until their ship was well underway that she said, “Is this just… what it’s like?”

“War?”

“No. I know war. I mean, being Cybertronian.” He looked at her, until she fidgeted and elaborated, “Barging in places and just taking what you want, because you know nine times out of ten, they can’t hope to fight you. Assuming you know what’s best for the whole galaxy.” Her voice dropped a bit. “Scaring people, even when you don’t mean to.”

Prowl scoffed. “Might I remind you that what’s best for the galaxy at the moment is to remain uneaten?”

“Look, I’m not disputing that. But what happens after the threat is dealt with?” Her voice hardened to match his. “Or are we always going to be able to find another threat, to justify whatever we want to do?”

After a pause, Prowl dropped into the seat beside her at the navigation console. “I’d be lying if I said we didn’t have blood on our hands, as a species. Far too much blood. Not so long ago, I’d have told you that was all there was to us.”

“But now you think it isn’t?”

When he spoke again, his voice was softer and more serious than she’d ever heard it. “It doesn’t have to be.”

+1.

“Yes,” Prowl said, as he flipped the controls on the console to prepare for a hyperspace jump.

“Yes to which question?” Rodimus demanded, struggling as best he could against the bonds that kept him clamped to his chair. Whether it was the legacy of being a cop or something he’d picked up during the war, Prowl was clearly no slouch at restraining people. “Yes, you’ve gone insane, yes, you _are_ kidnapping me, or yes, this is because of the way I was at the funeral?”

Prowl glanced coyly back at him over his doorwing. “Yes. To at least one of those.”

“Prowl!”

“Fine. Since the gallons of highgrade you appear to have taken to guzzling every morning – and possibly bathing in, given the state of you –”

“Primus, five minutes with you after centuries apart, and it comes flooding back exactly how much I _hate you_.”

“– have left you a little slow on the uptake, yes, I am kidnapping you. You’ll thank me later.”

“For _what_??”

“You’re miserable on the _Exitus_.” Prowl finished entering a course heading and leaned back in his seat, watching the stars blur. “You’ve _been_ miserable, I would estimate, since the _Lost Light_ returned to Cybertron for the last time.”

Rodimus choked down the small part of him that wanted to pipe up _and whose fault is that, Commander Stick-Up-The-Aft – you’re the one who scrapped my ship, who grounded me, who took away –_

The thought of Megatron was still enough to make him wince, even after all this time.

Instead, he said, “So this is – what? An intervention? _Guilt_? You planning to pack me off to that Decepticon psych clinic – what is it, the Flywheels Memorial Centre? Why do _you_ care that I’m miserable?” He realised a little late that he’d tacitly accepted Prowl’s conclusion, but he supposed it was pointless to deny how he felt.

Showing his face at Ratchet’s funeral had been a mistake. Rodimus had been coping fine – well, no, that was a lie, but he’d effectively convinced Thunderclash and the _Exitus_ crew that he was functioning normally. But seeing Ratchet’s grave had unlocked something, and Drift – well, Drift had always had an uncomfortable ability to see right through Rodimus. Over the weeks since the funeral, Drift had been comming him daily, worried – and now this.

Prowl, as casually as if he weren’t addressing a bound prisoner while piloting a technically stolen starship to parts unknown, picked up the mug perched on the console and took a sip. The mug said _#1 Boss_ on it.

“When I was young, the only thing I wanted was order. To be able to trust that the world was in balance, and to spend my life doing meaningful work to maintain that order. And now – against all odds – we have that ordered world. New Cybertron isn’t perfect, but it’s a pretty far cry from the Senate, and the Functionist Council, and the legacy of the Primes even before them – structure upon structure, all rotten inside. Now we have something that was genuinely built for everyone, _by_ everyone. Order. Peace.”

“Great. Good for you. Finally got what you always wanted.” Rodimus twisted in his bonds, unable to achieve a proper sarcastic slouch while they were keeping him upright.

Prowl looked at him.

And, centuries apart or not, Rodimus had still had millions of years of practice reading that look. “But you don’t want it anymore, do you?”

Prowl’s mouth curled up at one side. “Breaking news, war changes people.” He grew serious again. “Keeping order is… not for me, not now. I’ve decided I’ll be more use out on the Galactic Rim, where there’s still order to _make._ ”

“None of that explains why you felt the need to club me over the head and drag me along.”

“That’s an insultingly barbaric description of the subtleties of my methods.”

“What subtleties? You handed me a can of soda and said, ‘Here, Rodimus, try some of this,’ and it turned out to be drugged –”

“Yes, and you drank it, so I’m not sure where you get off criticising my strategy.” Just when Rodimus thought Prowl wasn’t going to give him an answer, Prowl sighed. “I brought you along because you’re dying on the _Exitus,_ running routine missions, and this is a chance. I brought you along because there are so damned few of us left now, Rodimus, and who else is going to understand?”

Rodimus’s jaw fell open.

Then he swallowed, and said, “So, what’s our course heading, Captain?”

“Troia Major for supplies. You can get off there and hail a transport back home if you prefer. I won’t stop you.”

“And after that?”

Prowl smiled – a full smile, a rare thing. “Shall we find out?”

“If it makes you feel any better,” Shockwave piped up from where he was bound to the remaining chair, “he didn’t ask me before bringing me along, either.”

Prowl sipped his coffee, as they streaked towards the second star to the right, straight on ’til morning.


	4. Sensory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ordinary torture doesn't work on Prowl. His torturer, however, is far from ordinary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO MANY WARNINGS on this chapter: Torture, captivity, non-consensual touching, and unwilling arousal. Please approach with care. This chapter is briefly sexually explicit.

“You know, for a long time, I considered pain.”

Prowl’s attention snaps to that voice. Beneath the sheer, dizzying _noise_ that pours from every one of the two dozen speakers around him _–_ not predictably, but a distant, awful scream followed by a whisper right against his helm, discordant shrieking and deep, thrumming engine growls and clocks ticking just a nanosecond out of sync – it’s difficult to follow a single sound, especially one so gentle. Prowl strains, all the awareness that would normally let him track eight hundred moving objects focused on only one.

“But I imagine that pain means little to you.”

The voice is all Prowl has. He can’t see, not really: the lights and strobing colours are unbearable, his optics are bleeding static.

“Understand, I would not normally give credence to the idea that any mech can train themselves not to succumb to pain. Pain is a great leveller. Perhaps some hold out longer than others, but even the strongest break, Prowl. But I suspect you’re different, aren’t you?”

Prowl thrashes, turning his head to try and escape the punishing light. It only makes him woozy. For a moment, the disorientation is so bad he’s convinced he’s falling off the table he’s been strapped to.

“It isn’t strength with you. Nor is it training. I’ve studied you for a while, now, hoping for the day our paths might cross. As near as anyone can tell, you simply respond differently to pain than most people do. They say you don’t feel, and perhaps this is part of that.”

A claw traces delicately down Prowl’s cheek, and Prowl freezes, trembling ever so slightly.

“You’re a poor, miswired little thing, aren’t you?” the voice coos. Prowl contemplates snapping his head around and trying to catch the hand in his teeth, but his head is throbbing and he’s no longer sure he can distinguish directions.

“Sensory deprivation would likewise fail to have the desired result; you seem like the type to relish the silence. And that’s why I – we – devised this particular apparatus. Sensory _overload_ : that seemed much more likely to break you. You do realise why I’m telling you all this, of course.”

Prowl grinds out between clenched teeth, “To… mock me. Because… understanding your… interrogator’s methods… is no defence… against their effects.”

“Very good. But then, I suppose you have enough experience at this – just not as the one on the table.”

Prowl zeroes in on that sound, that heavy tread, and waits until it’s all the way across the room before raising his voice to add, “And because… listening to the sound of your own voice… boosts your already inflated sense of your own importance.”

There’s a pause, long and dangerous.

“Why, Prowl,” Tarn purrs. “Are you saying you don’t like...”

His tone abruptly drops an octave.

“… _my Voice?_ ”

All the chaos, all the noise and light, pushes itself through Prowl’s spark in a single throb, and he screams.

***

He thinks he might still be screaming, hours later, or it could be seconds.

His throat feels raw, but he can’t make out the sound of his own voice. There’s so _much_. Every wire and filament in his body feels like it’s been scraped with a rusty blade, and his sensory processing is so overwhelmed that he might as well be deafened and blindfolded for all that he’s taking in anything useful, and Tarn _has_ _yet to ask him a single question._

_Are you toying with me?_ Prowl holds onto the rage in his thoughts – it’s a simple thing, a unifying thing. _Are you really so pathetic that you don’t know how to interrogate, only to break? Or i_ _s this just Megatron letting his pet monster have a little treat, before you hand me over to him?_

The light, the sound – everything abruptly cuts out.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Tarn says.

Prowl presses his head back against the table and lies there, shaking. He hadn’t even realised he was speaking aloud. That scares him more than anything.

Tentatively, he tests out his voice. It’s a croak, but it seems to be under his control. “I can… hardly cooperate if I don’t know what you want.”

“All in good time.” Tarn leans across him – little more than a looming purple shadow as Prowl’s optics slowly come back online – and runs one fingertip over the edge of Prowl’s doorwing.

It should be nothing, but that feather-light intrusion is too much for Prowl’s wrecked body. The sensation crackles through him like electricity; he squirms and gasps, just barely managing to bite his lip before the gasp becomes a moan. To his horror, he can feel heat pooling in his belly, and his valve starting to grow wet.

Tarn has frozen above him – apparently, just for a moment, as shocked as Prowl. Then he murmurs, “Well, well.”

“You _know_ that means nothing,” Prowl snarls. “Misfiring sensors after what you’ve done to me, that’s all.”

“As I said. Poor...” Tarn’s hand lands on Prowl’s collar fairing, not choking or grabbing, just… there. Big and warm and _there._ “Miswired...” The hand strokes over Prowl’s bumper and _oh,_ that is horrifyingly good, that firm, heated touch grounding him, smoothing out all those frazzled sensory receptors; Prowl cries out this time, unable to stop himself. Tarn’s touch comes to rest on his abdomen. “Little thing.”

Prowl glares, even though it’s all he can do to keep from arching into that touch. “Get your filthy traitor’s hands -”

Tarn’s thumb moves, just slightly, the claw caressing a seam in Prowl’s armour. Prowl’s protest becomes a low groan.

“Yes?” Tarn asks, all innocence. “Get my filthy traitor’s hands where?”

_Off me off me off me SAY IT!_ But Prowl’s Primus-damned voice is betraying him in the opposite direction now. The only sound is his harsh ventilations, and the noise of his own spark whirring in his audials.

“You like this,” Tarn whispers. There’s just a shade of his gift in that whisper, just enough to tug at Prowl’s spark, then let it go. “Why pretend otherwise? After all, I thought you said it means nothing.” He leans closer, so that his mask is practically brushing Prowl’s face. “It means nothing, that deep down, you want the dirty Decepticon’s hands all over you.” His hand hasn’t moved; if anything, its touch has lightened, so it’s now barely there, tickling and maddening. Prowl finds his hips lifting, pushing up for more contact. “So tell me, Prowl. _Do you want me to touch you?_ ”

Tarn’s Voice kicks in at full force, squeezing Prowl’s spark and making him writhe in his bonds. The overstimulated buzz of his circuits ramps up further, and he’s aching, he needs –

“Yes.”

And just like that, Tarn snatches his hands away.

Prowl knows his distress must show on his face, because Tarn takes one look at him and chuckles. “Then that will give you something to think about, all by yourself in here. I told you, even the strongest break.”

He flicks the sensory overload array back on, and leaves Prowl alone.


	5. Command

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Command is not without its... challenges. Or, a day in Prowl's life, told in Spec Ops text messages.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're no longer in Prowl Week, but I'm not quite done yet! :) And I was saying recently that I wanted to do more with epistolatory fiction. Combine that with recent experiences of celebrations while under quarantine, and you get group chat, Spec Ops style!
> 
> No particular warnings for this one.

_Official Memo  
Issued from the desk of: Prowl, Second-in-Command, Autobot High Command_

I have precisely one question for the two of you, and that question is, _why_?

I would advise you that, on assignment or not, you have twenty seconds to answer.

\- Prowl

...

_EscapeArtist messaged:_ why what, Boss?

_Autobot 2IC messaged:_ You know perfectly well. My office. My _desk_. Why?

_EscapeArtist messaged:_ … we thought you’d like it?

_EscapeArtist messaged:_ do you not like it

_EscapeArtist messaged:_ it was Skids’s idea

_EscapeArtist messaged:_ unless you do like it

_EscapeArtist messaged:_ give me something to work with here Boss

_SuperLearner messaged:_ Primus fraggit, Getaway, you’re spiralling, how do you ever survive interrogation

_EscapeArtist messaged:_ VERY WELL is how I survive it

_SuperLearner messaged:_ Boss, if you don’t like the flowers, we’ll clean them up

_Autobot2IC messaged:_ Whether I like them is irrelevant. What possessed you to cover my workspace in them?

_Autobot2IC messaged:_ Also, how did you get into my office? I explicitly designed the new security system to be spy-proof.

_EscapeArtist messaged:_ yeah I know it took like a half hour to get through it – plus I had to go rescue SOMEONE from the ventilation shaft

_SuperLearner messaged:_ it was BOOBY-TRAPPED, who does that???

_Autobot2IC messaged:_ I don’t know. Perhaps a member of High Command who is persistently troubled by intelligence operatives in his ceiling.

_Autobot2IC messaged:_ I am uncertain whether you know anyone fitting that description.

_SuperLearner messaged:_ troubled my aft, I am a DELIGHT, Boss ;)

_EscapeArtist messaged:_ ANYWAY that’s why the cake is a skosh smudged

_EscapeArtist messaged:_ we were in a hurry

_EscapeArtist messaged:_ don’t tell Dom, he was dead proud of that icing

_Autobot2IC messaged:_ Cake?

_SuperLearner messaged:_ Uh-oh

_EscapeArtist messaged:_ um

_EscapeArtist messaged:_ top right-hand drawer, Boss?

…

_Autobot2IC has added SilverFox to the conversation_

_Autobot2IC messaged:_ So. Dominus Ambus. I understand you are somehow involved in the circumstances leading to the current state of my office.

_SilverFox messaged:_ Oh, good, you found it! It was really the lads’ idea, but I couldn’t resist. Did you enjoy the cake?

_Autobot2IC messaged:_ Would someone kindly inform me what is going on, in the remaining seconds before I assign you all to bodyguard the Wreckers for the rest of your brief careers?

_SuperLearner messaged:_ oh frag please tell us Jazz wasn’t yanking our chains about today being your creation day

_Autobot2IC messaged:_

_Autobot2IC messaged:_ w

_Autobot2IC messaged:_ I beg your pardon. What?

_SilverFox messaged:_ Happy creation day, Prowl! One moment, everyone should be on this thread before we sing.

_Autobot2IC messaged:_ Sing??

_Autobot2IC messaged:_ EVERYONE?

_EscapeArtist messaged:_ Dom I think he’s gonna literally murder us

_SilverFox has added NowYouSeeMe, TwoBotsOneComm, CrossbowBot, StingLikeABee and MusicMan to the conversation_

_StingLikeABee messaged:_ Happy birthday, Prowl!! Whew, I didn’t think we were going to be able to plan this without you figuring it out!

_Autobot2IC messaged:_ A surprise to us all, Bumblebee.

_StingLikeABee messaged:_ Well, we did have everyone’s help! I mean, Shock and Ore sourced most of the stuff,

_TwoBotsOneComm messaged:_ Still waiting on some of you to pay us back FYI

_StingLikeABee messaged:_ Mirage did the flower-arranging,

_NowYouSeeMe messaged:_ You will have noticed that each bouquet has been selected for meaning as well as scent and colour.

_Autobot2IC messaged:_ Which one of them means “blatant violation of a superior officer’s workspace”?

_EscapeArtist messaged:_ l i t e r a l l y m u r d e r u s

_StingLikeABee messaged:_ Dominus made the cake, I arranged the card, Skids and Getaway got everything into your office – oh, and Atomizer figured out how to rig your filing cabinet to spray birthday confetti when you opened it!

_Autobot2IC messaged:_ He. What.

_CrossbowBot messaged:_ … I’m assuming you haven’t opened your filing cabinet yet, have you, Boss?

_EscapeArtist messaged:_ this is it this is how I die

_StingLikeABee messaged:_ And, of course, Jazz organised all of us. We wouldn’t even have known it was your creation day if it wasn’t for him!

_Autobot2IC messaged:_ Yes, I have been wondering about that, in fact. My date of creation is not public record, Jazz.

_MusicMan messaged:_ I’ve got my ways, Prowler. Now! Everybody ready to sing that Earth song I sent you? “Happy Birthday”?

_StingLikeABee messaged:_ Yes

_SilverFox messaged:_ Yes!

_TwoBotsOneComm messaged:_ no

_EscapeArtist messaged:_ aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

_MusicMan messaged:_ Too bad! Ready or not, I’m switching the channel over to voice – now!

***

\- _two hours later -_

_Autobot2IC messaged:_ Jazz.

_MusicMan messaged:_ What’s up?

_Autobot2IC messaged:_ About earlier.

_MusicMan messaged:_ Yeah?

_Autobot2IC messaged:_ When you organised everyone to sing for me –

_Autobot2IC messaged:_ It was terrible. It was so terrible.

_MusicMan messaged:_ You’re welcome, Prowl.

_Autobot2IC messaged:_ I’d actually forgotten it was my creation day, you know.

_MusicMan messaged:_ Yeah, figured you might. That’s why I pushed so hard for a celebration, even with the team scattered across the galaxy right now.

_Autobot2IC messaged:_ Why?

_MusicMan messaged:_ Answer for an answer – how’d you forget it was your creation day? Mr. Track Eight Hundred Moving Objects Backwards. How’d you forget?

_Autobot2IC messaged:_ We’re in the middle of a war. It wasn’t relevant.

_MusicMan messaged:_ And that’s why. Because it IS relevant, Prowl; everything we’re doing, everything we’re sacrificing, it’s got to be for something. If something as pure and simple as celebrating a friend’s creation day is beyond us, what are we even doing here?

_Autobot2IC messaged:_

…

_Autobot2IC messaged:_ Thanks, Jazz.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fics I've now written in which Mirage arranges flowers with specific meanings for Prowl: 2.
> 
> Hopefully, the identities of everyone in the chat are clear from context, but in case you need a cheat sheet:
> 
> Autobot2IC - Prowl  
> EscapeArtist - Getaway  
> SuperLearner - Skids  
> SilverFox - Dominus Ambus  
> TwoBotsOneComm - Shock and Ore, the Duobots (shared comm)  
> NowYouSeeMe - Mirage  
> CrossbowBot - Atomizer  
> MusicMan - Jazz  
> StingsLikeABee - Bumblebee


End file.
